Cocoa Beach 2011

Dan, Louie, Emily, Auntie M and me, drove to Cocoa Beach last week for a week in the sun with Grandma and we were lucky to spend a couple days with the Florida Jansens. It was great to spend three short days with them.....it was hard to leave them. The kids had so much fun together.

More on our trip later this week.

Christmas Morning

This should be the LAST post from Christmas! It's only been six weeks....and I'm getting caught up on things.
Emily and Louie were really looking forward to Christmas and Santa's visit this year. Since October, both of them have been talking about things that they wanted from Santa.
Then, in early December, we went to see Santa at the University Club only to find out that both of them had completely changed their minds on what they wanted from the big fat man in the red suit...
Emily told Santa that she wanted a car and Louie wanted a Millenium Falcon.
So, Santa went to work with trying to figure out what sort of CAR to bring Emily and also went to work searching for a Millenium Falcon.
I was secretly hoping that Louie would change his mind back to the crashing cars thing that he had been saying for MONTHS....and Emily change to anything but a CAR.
Well, as we got closer to Christmas, both kept talking about their respective toys.
The week before Christmas, panic set in! The only Millenium Falcon to be found on the internets was a 1500 piece LEGO set for $500. Ummmm, no. It became very clear to me that LEGO was the only toy company licensed to make Star Wars themed toys now. There wasn't a Millenium Falcon to be found, anywhere.
So, in my frustration, I posted on Facebook asking how I was going to give my child the ONE thing that he wanted, a Millenium Falcon? THANK GOODNESS, people actually read what I post on Facebook! One of my friends, Trinity Reyes, sent me a link to a Millenium Falcon that she found on Craigslist (in Seattle)....I immediately wrote to the seller and heard nothing; I'm pretty sure they wanted no part of packing and shipping their toy.
If I remember correctly, this originally was sent to me on December 21!
Time was ticking.....I sent a message to one of my classmates, Gael Fashingbauer Cooper and my cousin, Shannon Druffel Ressler who both live in Seattle, hoping that one of them might be able to help get my hands on that Millenium Falcon.
Unfortunately, Gael was busy with work and had deadlines to meet. Fortunately, Shannon is the BEST cousin on the planet and contacted the seller and met her at the dentist office the next morning, December 22...tick tock.
Shannon totally rocked! and had the Millenium Falcon in her hands and was off to Fed Ex to get it sent to me in Minnesota!
The Millenium Falcon arrived the next day.....

Emily and Louie were exhausted from Christmas eve at Grandma's. Louie didn't want to get up the next morning! So, Emily waited patiently for him to get up!

A few minutes later, I came out of the kitchen to find this:

We knew that Christmas morning was underway and this was going to be a memorable one!

There was a lot of this type of thing going on....digging around under the Christmas tree.

Santa brought Louie this Lego set (not the $500 Millenium Falcon set!).

Someone realized that there wasn't a Millenium Falcon under the tree.....

But it wasn't under the tree, Santa left the HUGE box by the front door.

and he was excited.

Emily didn't get a car, but she did get a horse drawn princess carriage that goes with the Take-A-Long Princess Castle that she got and she was thrilled!

and who knew, the Millenium Falcon takes batteries! it makes all the noises from Star Wars. Love it!

Thank you Shannon!

Christmas Eve

We celebrated Christmas Eve out at Grandma Jansen's house. Santa makes his traditional appearance...although it was a bit dicey this year, there was so much snow, we weren't sure how Santa would get in the back door. But it is nothing that a window onto the patio couldn't fix!

Everyone had their picture taken with Santa!

Christmas Cookies!

The weekend before Christmas, we always get together for a Jansen family tradition, Christmas cookie decorating.....it is always lots of fun! Emily and Louie really enjoy decorating and getting together with their cousins.
Emily loves spending time with her cousin, Katie.  

Feel the Love

In December, we had record snow! Snow means lots of fun outside....

15 Minutes of Fame!

Back in December, Louie had his 15 minutes of fame at the NELC Christmas program.

This last picture, Louie was (again) telling Santa that he wanted a Millenium Falcon for Christmas......more on that later!

The Gingerbread House

The Monday after Snowmageddon, we were snowed in on our street....I stayed home from work and while Dan shoveled more snow, Emily, Louie and I put together our Trader Joe's Gingerbread House.
I'd highly recommend this model...it's an A-Frame, sort of looking like a European Chalet. Very cute.
We had a great time!

Holly Hassle Parade

We headed downtown Minneapolis the weekend before Christmas to see the Holidazzle Parade. It was bitter cold, but the kids still had fun!

Emily's Sixth Birthday!

Emily turned six, yes six! We had a birthday party for her at the St. Francis Bowling Center with her family and friends from school. It was so much fun!





She received so many great gifts. A couple of her favorites are the little Christmas Tree that is she put in her bedroom and the box of girly clothes from Auntil M (and family).

A Visit with Santa

We went to Brunch with Santa at the University Club the first weekend of December.

Grandma gave Emily this cute dress coat for her birthday and so there was some posing in front of the decorations.


Getting Louie to put on some nice clothes (that didn't have Star Wars or a Super Hero on it) has become quite a chore lately. I have to remind him that he won't have nice pictures in his scrapbook if he doesn't look nice.


Some of the pretty Christmas decorations around the U Club.




After brunch, we went into meet Santa.




Louie told Santa that he wants a Millenium Falcon, Emily told him that she wants a car? A car....